WAWA/WeAreWideAwake is my Public Service to America as a muckracker who has journeyed seven times to Israel Palestine since June 2005.
WAWA is dedicated to confronting media and governments that shield the whole
truth.

We who Are Wide
Awake are compelled by the "fierce urgency of Now" [Rev MLK, Jr.] to raise
awareness and promote the human dialogue about many of the crucial issues of our
day: the state of our Union and in protection of democracy, what life is like
under military occupation in Palestine, the Christian EXODUS from the Holy Land,
and spirituality-from a Theologically Liberated Christian Anarchist
POV.

"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all...and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave...a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils."George Washington's Farewell Address - 1796

We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that, among these, are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. -July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence

The United States
and Egypt are negotiating a proposal that would make the Middle East a
nuclear-free zone, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday, saying the effort
was a meant to prevent Iran from disrupting an upcoming UN conference on
nuclear nonproliferation.

U.S. officials told the Wall Street Journal that the move could be a
significant step toward showing that Washington, who is often criticized of
overlooking Israel's reported nuclear arsenal, could be even handed in its
attempt to ensure the Middle East is free of nuclear weapons.

"We've made a proposal to them [Egypt] that goes beyond what the U.S. has
been willing to do before," senior U.S. officials told the WSJ, adding
that they didn't believe that would happen without first achieving major
advances in Arab-Israeli peace talks.

An Israeli official told the WSJ that Israel was in favor a Middle East freeze
of WMD and nuclear weapons, but that "it should be the culmination of a
process that begins with bilateral and individual peace agreements between all
the countries in the region."

Ellen Tauscher, undersecretary of state for arms control and international
security told the WSJ that Washington was "concerned that the conditions
are not right unless all members of the region participate, which would be
unlikely unless there is a comprehensive peace plan which is accepted,"

Tauscher added that Washington had already discussed the possibility of
creating such a nuclear-free zone with the Arab League and other members of the
Nonaligned Movement.

Egypt and other Arab states have been demanding that any final declaration that
might come out of the month-long UN nuclear nonproliferation conference planned
to open on Monday would include the call for the creation of a
nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East.

Israel is widely believed to have a sizable nuclear arsenal although it has not
acknowledged it.

Egypt is also demanding the convening of an international conference next year
with Israel's participation to discuss that issue. Diplomats have said the
United States and Russia are trying to find a way to satisfy Egypt's demands.

Many NPT signatories would also like the review conference to call for
universality of the treaty - meaning that Israel, Pakistan and India should be
pressured to sign and get rid of any warheads they have. North Korea withdrew
from the NPT in 2003 and tested nuclear devices in 2006 and 2009.

Senior Obama administration officials told the WSJ Saturday that Washington
would support a conference such as the one demanded by Egypt at a future date,
saying that talks with Egypt on the subject would resume on the sidelines of
this month's UN conference in New York

The
64th Anniversary of USA Terrorism Enlightened by the Wisdom of Nonviolence: by eileen fleming

The 6th and 9th of August 2009, marked the 64th anniversary of the most brutal acts of
terrorism upon innocent people; America's atomic bombings of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki.

On Armistice Day, 1948 General Omar Nelson Bradley
warned, "We live in a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants, in a
world that has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without
conscience. We have solved the mystery of the atom and forgotten the
lessons of the Sermon on The Mount. We know more about war than we know
about peace, more about dying than we know about living."

In
1995, from Ashkelon Prison, Mordechai Vanunu noted: "A radioactive cloud
consumed rubbed out Hiroshima...A live nuclear test sentenced you. A
nuclear laboratory…children women trees animals in and under a nuclear
mushroom…burning… burned…flattened to ground radioactive
ash-Hiroshima...Nuclear weapons gamblers win against you…Hollywood
doesn't know you - you are not a Jewish Holocaust." [1]

A little
history:

At 2:45 AM, on August 6, 1945, an American B-29
bomber flew north from Tinian Island toward Japan. Three and a half
hours later, the Enola Gay dropped "Little Boy" an 8,900-pound atomic
weapon upon civilians in Hiroshima and leveled almost 90% of the city.
On August 9, "Fat Man" was dropped on Nagasaki, and one third of that
city was destroyed.

"Little Boy" was fuelled by highly
enriched uranium-235 and generated a destructive force of about 15
kilotons—the equivalent of 15,000 tons of TNT. "Fat Man" consisted of a
plutonium core surrounded by high explosives wired to explode
simultaneously and yielded a 22 kiloton explosion.

As a
child, I could not comprehend how my country could cold bloodedly target
and murder Japanese citizens in order to 'save' American lives, which
was the lame response I always received from every adult I questioned as
to why after what we did to Hiroshima did we do it again to Nagasaki?

If
THAT DAY, we call 9/11 taught us anything, it should be that America's
nuclear arsenal cannot defeat 'terrorism' or provide security from the
actions of a few violent mad men who target and murder innocent ones.

American
money is imprinted with "IN GOD WE TRUST" but reality is we have become
a nation of hypocrites, for by our foreign policy we expose that we
live by the sword.

America has a nuclear arsenal of over
10,000 weapons and nearly 2,000 remain on hair-trigger alert ever since
the end of the Cold War.

An estimated 150 – 240 tactical nuclear
weapons remain based in 5 NATO countries and the United States is the
only country with nuclear weapons deployed on foreign soil.

American
taxpayers provide over $54 billion annually to maintain WMD's, which is
but a drop in the bucket of the overall U.S. military spending. The
U.S. is also a co-conspirator in international nuclear apartheid and
major collaborator in Israel's INEFFECTIVE policy of nuclear ambiguity.

In
April 2004, and just three days after Vanunu was released from 18 years
in jail for providing the photographic proof and telling the truth
about Israel's clandestine seven story underground WMD Program in the
Negev, Uri Avnery wrote:

"Everybody understands that he has no
more secrets. What can a technician know after 18 years in jail, during
which technology has advanced with giant steps?

"But gradually
it becomes clear what the security establishment is really afraid of.
Vanunu is in a position to expose the close partnership with the United
States in the development of Israel's nuclear armaments.

"This
worries Washington so much, that the man responsible in the State
Department for 'arms control', Under-Secretary John Bolton, has come to
Israel in person for the occasion. Vanunu, it appears, can cause severe
damage to the mighty super-power.

"The Americans, it seems, are
very worried. The Israeli security services have to dance to their tune.
The world must be prevented by all available means from hearing, from
the lips of a credible witness, that the Americans are full partners in
Israel's nuclear arms program, while pretending to be the world's
sheriff for the prevention of nuclear proliferation."[2]

On
July 29, 2009, Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien of Baltimore gave a keynote
talk at the first Deterrence Symposium, hosted by U.S. Strategic Command
at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.

He said, "Our world and
its leaders must stay focused on the destination of a
nuclear-weapons-free world and on the concrete steps that lead
there…[and] that deterrence, in the words of the U.S. bishops, is not 'a
long-term basis for peace' …the spread of nuclear weapons and
technology to other nations, and the threat of nuclear terrorism, which
cannot be deterred with nuclear weapons, point to the need to move
beyond nuclear deterrence as rapidly as possible…Religious leaders,
prominent officials, and other people of goodwill who support a
nuclear-weapons-free world are not naïve about the task ahead. They know
the path will be difficult and will require determined political
leadership, strong public support, and the dedicated skills of many
capable leaders and technical experts. But difficult is not
impossible.” [3]

The Archbishop outlined several concrete steps
toward total nuclear disarmament supported by the Catholic Church,
including the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, negotiations on a Fissile
Material Cut-Off Treaty, and the revision of military doctrines of
nuclear weapon states to “renounce the first use of nuclear weapons” and
“declare they will not be used against non-nuclear threats.”[Ibid]

"We live in an insecure, uncertain world; it is also a
time of opportunity. It is a time to put aside many of the old ways and
with creativity and imagination, develop new thinking, ideas,
institutions, etc. Young people and women will help this process; they
know that Nuclear weapons belong to the cold war thinking, and can never
be used. To do so, would be immoral, illogical and destroy the
Environment.

"They know our real problems, are: Poverty,
Environment, unethical globalization, abuse of Human Rights and
International Laws, gender inequality, ethnical/political conflict,
State and paramilitary acts of terror…They know that spending trillions
on weapons that can never be used, while each day over 30,000 children
die of preventable disease, is immoral and unacceptable.

"We are
all aware that we are living in an increasing Culture of violence, and
if we are to survive we need to build a Culture of Non-violence.
Choosing not to kill another human being is the greatest contribution
each of us can make to peace. This is not a hard choice when through
prayer, meditation, morality, or logic, we come to realize that our
lives are sacred as is the life of all our brothers and sisters, and
there are always alternatives to violence which work. Human beings are
evolving and there is a new consciousness that we must choose
non-violence and build strong relationships and community." [4]

On
May 17, 2009, Mairead prevailed on seventeen Nobel laureates to sign a
letter called the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Declaration. Her friend, author and
Jesuit priest John Dear wrote of that day:

"Released in
Hiroshima, it calls upon world leaders, and all people, to eliminate
nuclear weapons. And it warns that unless humanity fails in that
endeavor, 'the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki' will be repeated. Such
weapons, [Mairead] says, belong to the tragic past. They belong to a
time when the world lacked the wisdom to realize that each culture needs
the other to survive.

"Governments which still hold such
weapons violate the prohibition of war in the UN charter. But more than
that, she says, they’re operating anachronistically. They’re out of
touch with the insights of the times. Nowadays our enemies aren’t across
the border. The enemies of humanity today are poverty, environmental
destruction, militarism, and war.

"Our security nowadays lies in
nonviolence and love. She insists that we all need to heed the wisdom
of nonviolence and apply it institutionally, internationally, globally
and concluded in The Vision of Peace, 'Everyone of us has a role to play
in the creation of a new culture of nonviolence.'" [5]

2009 is the final year in the United Nations
Decade of Creating a Culture of Nonviolence for All the Children of the
World. America is on the record in the UN as abstaining from voting
because to support such an initiative would make it "too hard for us to
go to war."

Many Americans live under the delusion
that the USA is a Christian nation. If that were true, we would lead the
way in nuclear disarmament and abolish war.

John Dear also
wrote:

"Contrary to what the Pentagon tells us, that our God is
not a god of war, but the God of peace; not a god of injustice, but the
God of justice; not a god of vengeance and retaliation, but the God of
compassion and mercy; not a god of violence, but the God of
non-violence; not a god of death, but the living God of life.

"[And
then] we discover a new image of God. As we begin to imagine the peace
and non-violence of God; we learn to worship the God of peace and
non-violence; and in the process, become people of peace and
non-violence.

"The one thing we can say for sure about Jesus is
that he practiced active, public, creative non-violence. He called us to
love our neighbors; to show compassion toward everyone; to seek justice
for the poor; to forgive everyone; to put down the sword; to take up
the cross in the struggle for justice and peace; to lay down our lives,
to risk our lives if necessary, in love for all humanity, and most of
all, to love our enemies. His last words to the community, to the
church, to us, as the soldiers dragged him away, could not be clearer or
more to the point: "Put down the sword."

"That's it. We are not
allowed to kill. That's why they run away; they realize he is serious
about non-violence…Jesus dies on the cross saying, "The violence stops
here in my body, which is given for you. You are forgiven, but from now
on, you are not allowed to kill:

"Violence doesn't work. War
doesn't work. Violence in response to violence always leads to further
violence. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. Those who
live by the bomb, the gun, the nuclear weapon, will die by bombs, guns
and nuclear weapons. You reap what you sow. The means are the ends. What
goes around comes around. War can not stop terrorism because war is
terrorism. War only sows the seeds for future wars.

"Underneath
this culture of war and injustice is a sophisticated spirituality of
violence, a spirituality of war, a spirituality of empire, a
spirituality of injustice that has nothing to do with the living God or
the Gospel of Jesus. [Ibid]

Jesus is best known as The
Prince of Peace and when he told Nicodemus, that you must be born again
to enter the kingdom of heaven, he was not talking about an emotional
high, but a TRANSFORMATION of heart and mind to wake up and see The
Divine in ALL people and all of creation.

Every August 6th in the
Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and Anglican churches, there is a
celebration of the Feast of the Transfiguration of Jesus, an event
reported in the synoptic gospels in which Jesus became radiant having
undergone a metamorphosis; a transformation.

In 2008, at
the National Press Club, Rev. Dr. John Chryssavgis, Theological Advisor
to the Ecumenical Patriarch on Environmental Issues, Greek Orthodox
Archdiocese of America addressed President Bush's agenda known as COMPLEX TRANSFORMATION:

"The
question is not how much more sophisticated our plants and weapons can
become, but how serious we are as a nation to lead the world with an
alternative vision which interprets power differently and promotes
peaceful coexistence globally.

"Complex Transformation is the
Bush administration proposed plan to restructure the nation's nuclear
weapons infrastructure. The administration's goal is to consolidate
existing nuclear facilities while increasing the capacity to produce
material for new nuclear weapons.

"According to a report jointly
released by the Energy Department (DOE) on January 10, 2008, the
administration seeks an annual production capacity of 80 plutonium pits
(read: triggers for new nuclear bombs) as a result of the
transformation.

"The main justification for the program is the
perceived need for a more adaptable and responsive nuclear
infrastructure to react to unnamed future threats."[6]

The Wisdom of Nonviolence

"The
God of peace is never glorified by human violence… The radical truth of
reality is that we are all one." –Thomas Merton

Gandhi's
non-violence was a political tactic that evolved from the inner
realization of spiritual unity within himself. Gandhi studied all the
world's religions and after attending many churches, he remarked that
Christianity was a great religion and all Christians should "TRY IT!"

The
problem is not with Christianity, but that too few who claim to be have
taken The Sermon on The Mount as their manifesto and live lives that
express that God is Love and God Loves All.

"Love is not the
starving of whole populations. Love is not the bombardment of open
cities. Love is not killing......Our manifesto is the Sermon on the
Mount, which means that we will try to be peacemakers." -Dorothy Day

"The
wisdom of non-violence teaches that war is not the way to follow Jesus.
War is not the will of God. War is never justified. War is never
blessed by God. War is not endorsed by any religion. War is the very
definition of mortal sin. War is demonic, evil, anti-human, anti-life,
anti-God, and anti-Christ." [7]

"In all of earth’s
sixty-five-million-year history, we are living in the most dangerous of
times. The fact that a bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and two hundred
thousand lives were vaporized within twenty minutes has not prevented
man from dreaming up more ways to fill space with weapons of mass
destruction. We were not created for militarism, but to turn our swords
into plowshares. We have arrived here today by no accident. We have been
summoned by the universe to claim the highest common ground. As the
Dali Lama said, the radicalism of our age is to be compassionate human
beings. We have been called to bring love and compassion back into the
equation and assist others to connect with the deepest parts of
themselves. Now is the time to realize, as never before, that when any
of us suffer, we all suffer. All life is interconnected, interdependent,
and greatly loved by the creator, the sustainer of the universe. We are
called by love, for love, and to love.”- Franciscan Fr. Louis Vitale,
July 20, 2005, Berkeley, California at TIKKUN’s first annual conference
for spiritual progressives. [8]

From Ashkelon prison in
1987, Mordechai Vanunu asked:

"Any country, which manufactures
and stocks nuclear weapons, is first of all endangering its own
citizens. This is why the citizens must confront their government and
warn it that it has no right to expose them to this danger. Because, in
effect, the citizens are being held hostage by their own government,
just as if they have been hijacked and deprived of their freedom and
threatened…when governments develop nuclear weapons without the consent
of their citizens - and this is true in most cases - they are violating
the basic rights of their citizens, the basic right not to live under
constant threat of annihilation…Is any government qualified and
authorized to produce such weapons?"

On April 5, 2009,
President Obama stood on the world stage amongst thousands of
flag-waving Czechs and spoke of good humor, home town Chicago, the will
of the people over tanks and guns, old conflicts, revolution, moral
leadership as the most powerful weapon, iron curtains that fell and the
state of 21st century nuclear weapons:

"We are here today because
enough people ignored the voices who told them that the world could not
change. We're here today because of the courage of those who stood up
and took risks to say that freedom is a right for all people, no matter
what side of a wall they live on, and no matter what they look like. We
are here today because the simple and principled pursuit of liberty and
opportunity shamed those who relied on the power of tanks and arms to
put down the will of a people.

"Some argue that the spread of
these weapons cannot be stopped, cannot be checked -– that we are
destined to live in a world where more nations and more people possess
the ultimate tools of destruction. Such fatalism is a deadly adversary,
for if we believe that the spread of nuclear weapons is inevitable, then
in some way we are admitting to ourselves that the use of nuclear
weapons is inevitable.

"As the only nuclear power to have used a
nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act…It
will take patience and persistence. But now we, too, must ignore the
voices who tell us that the world cannot change. We have to insist,
"Yes, we can."

"There is violence and injustice in our world that
must be confronted. We must confront it by standing together as free
nations, as free people. I know that a call to arms can stir the souls
of men and women more than a call to lay them down. But that is why the
voices for peace and progress must be raised together.

"Let us
honor our past by reaching for a better future. Let us bridge our
divisions, build upon our hopes, and accept our responsibility to leave
this world more prosperous and more peaceful than we found it. Together
we can do it.

"Words must mean something [and] violence and injustice must be
confronted by standing together as free nations, as free people…[and]
Human destiny will be what we make of it."[9]

To this day, the
USA and Israel claim to be peace seekers and democracies.

"Israel
is a not a democracy but is an Ethnocracy, meaning a country run and
controlled by a national group with some democratic elements but set up
with Jews in control and structured to keep them in control.”-Jeff
Halper, American Israeli, Founder and Coordinator of ICAHD/Israeli
Committee Against House Demolitions and a Noble Peace Prize Nominee for
2006.

To this day Vanunu remains an open air prisoner captive in
occupied east Jerusalem denied the right to leave the Jewish State. What
Vanunu's Freedom of Speech trial exposed since it began on January 25,
2006 is that the Israeli SECURITY System controls the Israeli Ministry
of Justice.[Learn more: Vanunu Archives @ WeAreWideAwake.org]

To
this day, Tel Aviv persists to attempt to deflect its egregious
transgressions of international law and human rights abuses aided and
abetted by well funded publicity campaigns, an AIPAC beholden Congress
and an American media that has failed at its commission to seek and
report all sides of a story when it comes to the now 42 years of
military occupation of Palestine.

In April 1999,
thirty-six members of the House of Representatives signed a letter
calling for Vanunu's release from prison because they believed "we have a
duty to stand up for men and women like Mordechai Vanunu who dare to
articulate a brighter vision for humanity."

President Clinton
responded with a public statement expressing concern for Vanunu and the
need for Israel and other non-parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty to
adhere to it and accept IAEA safeguards.

However, ever since the
silence had been deafening, until hope resurrected in Prague:

"Words
must mean something [and] violence and injustice must be confronted by
standing together as free nations, as free people…Human destiny will be
what we make of it."-President Obama

"You cannot talk like
sane men around a peace table while the atomic bomb itself is ticking
beneath it. Do not treat the atomic bomb as a weapon of offense; do not
treat it as an instrument of the police. Treat the bomb for what it is:
the visible insanity of a civilization that has ceased...to obey the
laws of life."- Lewis Mumford, 1946

"Our society is run by insane
people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for
maniacal ends...I believe that as soon as people want peace in the world
they can have it. The only trouble is they are not aware they can get
it…You're just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do anyway.
You've got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It's all down
to you, mate...All we are saying is give peace a chance...All you need
is love...Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a
dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and
the world will be as one...Reality leaves a lot to the
imagination."-John Lennon

"If you are not apart of the solution;
you are apart of the problem."-Eldridge Cleaver

"HOPE has two children.The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it."-St. Augustine

"He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust." - Aquinas

Everyone has the right to freedom of
opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions
without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and
ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

" In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."-Mother Teresa

“You cannot talk like sane men around a peace table while the atomic bomb itself is ticking beneath it. Do not treat the atomic bomb as a weapon of offense; do not treat it as an instrument of the police. Treat the bomb for what it is: the visible insanity of a civilization that has ceased...to obey the laws of life.”- Lewis Mumford, 1946

The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership....a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures." - William Fulbright

“Any nation that year after year continues to raise the Defense budget while cutting social programs to the neediest is a nation approaching spiritual death.” - Rev. MLK

Establishment of Israel

"On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations." - May 14, 1948. The Declaration of the Establishment of Israel